I’m going to devote the next few posts in this series to perspective and point of view in fiction writing. They are two different things, so let’s explore their differences and how to use them. If you are an emerging writer, you will find that understanding and using perspective and point of view wisely will have an enormous impact on the quality of your writing.
What is perspective?
“Perspective” is the way your characters experience the world and perceive what is happening to them. It is their attitudes and predispositions. It’s what makes them tick. To use a cliche, people can see a half a glass of water as half full or half empty. To really bring a character to life, you must find a way to show us who they are and how they view the world, hopefully through action and dialog. Are they kind and generous? Mean and nasty? Annoying and sarcastic?
Essentially, there are as many perspectives as there are people in the world. But there are some recognizable traits. You know people who are just generally happy. You know people with a wry sense of humor, and their whole approach to life is like that. They just see everything with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. And you know people who have been “rode hard.” The trials they have experienced show up in the lines on their faces, their bedraggled posture, and sometimes their inability to see beyond their own challenges.
Here are two different perspectives, for illustration:
Joe stumbles and kicks the ottoman with his broken toe. “Ow! Frick! Who put that damn thing there! Stella, was it you?”
Roger stumbles and kicks the ottoman with his broken toe. “Ow! Dang! I’m such an idiot!”
So, we can see that Joe has a tendency to believe that others are to blame when things go wrong, while Roger tends to persecute himself. They have two very different perspectives.
You can use perspective to highlight traits, behaviors, and predispositions. If you really know your characters, everything they do and say will be consistent with who they are, and we (readers) will find them three-dimensional and believable. And that keeps us reading, which as we know is one of the goals of fiction writing–to write rich and entertaining material that compels the reader to keep reading.
What is point of view?
Point of view (or “POV”) is a little more technical, and there are several established types of POV, including “omniscient” and “first person.” For simplicity, I’m not going to talk about all of them in this post.
One of the greatest challenges for emerging writers is the ability to maintain a consistent POV that keeps the reader engaged and avoids confusion as to who is thinking, doing and saying things in the story.
For the moment, I’m going to focus on third person POV, and specifically one type of third person POV, called “limited third person.” In limited third person point of view, the story describes one character’s thoughts, motivations, and feelings. As the reader of this type of fiction, we know what that person is thinking and experiencing. We really get inside the character’s head.
Limited third person happens to be my favorite POV, but that’s beside the point. I also write in first person sometimes, in which the narrator of the story speaks to the reader. (As an example, you can see the relatively silly and light-hearted piece I wrote from a freewrite prompt, titled The Goat. That piece is in first person.)
Limited third person can be very engaging for the reader, as the author tells the story through that person’s point of view. (You may hear the term “deep point of view,” particularly if you are involved in a writing community. I’ll talk about that in a future post. When done very precisely, limited third person is deep point of view.) In this POV, we can really experience the story through that character’s eyes and feel what that character feels.
Limited third person point of view: when things go awry
Remaining solidly in one point of view is challenging to do well. It’s very easy to slip in and out of a character’s thoughts and into another character’s point of view, or to an external, “omniscient” POV.
Let’s look at some examples. Here’s one I have made up for this purpose:
Jerry lifted the dumbbells slowly, but steadily, aware of Rose on the elliptical trainer, watching him. She stepped off, toweled off the elliptical handlebars, and walked to the water cooler. “What an idiot,” she thought.
This example shifts POV mid-stride. We start out believing this is Jerry’s story. We may begin wondering what his motivations are, and perhaps even hope that he’s going to get the girl in the end. The story doesn’t work well when it shifts over to Rose’s point of view. For readers, changes in POV can be confusing and frustrating. Who are we supposed to care about, here?
Here’s another made-up example, where the POV shifts from third person limited to omniscient:
Tricia scrambled the egg, thinking about her day. Would Brian be there at the club? The idea made her shiver. The terrified look on her face said it all.
The trouble here is that we get into Tricia’s thoughts at the beginning of the paragraph, and then we get yanked back out at the end. She can’t see her own face, right? Only an external viewpoint would be able to see that, and since presumably she’s alone in her kitchen, the POV witnessing the look on her face is an omniscient point of view.
When it’s okay to change POV
But, you may be thinking, there are lots of stories out there that change from one point of view to another. And you would be correct. Experienced writers know how to do so gracefully so they don’t confuse their readers in the process.
Let’s say you want to tell one story or event from two different characters’ experience. That’s fine. You could write one scene or chapter where you tell about how the house burned down from the point of view of the person who escaped the fire, and then in the next scene or chapter, tell it from the POV of the arsonist.
When experienced writers change point of view, they typically do so at a chapter break, or a scene break. For chapter break changes, you might see the next chapter titled with the protagonist’s or narrator’s name. For POV changes between scenes, you might see a line or a set of hashtags. Any of these devices can help the reader make the mental transition from one point of view to another.
Editing for POV
Nearly all writers, even very experienced writers, struggle with point of view. The critical step after writing a fiction piece is to read it again, carefully, for places where the reader may get lost, and may not be able to determine who is speaking or acting.
I typically step away from my work for a while, and return with fresh eyes. It’s also a good idea to have someone else read your work and provide feedback. I highly recommend getting involved in a writing community, such as The Writers’ Block. (See the link at the bottom.)
Here’s an example of an edit I made on a piece I published some time ago. (You can read the whole piece here: The Stories We Tell.)
The story originally started out with this opening:
Harriett and Ginny walk to the bakery, holding hands. Ginny is afraid and has not left the apartment in the week since the shooting.
On my final edit, I realized that the reader won’t know until the second sentence whose point of view matters. In a very short piece, I felt it was important to get into the protagonist’s point of view immediately. So I changed the opening lines to:
Ginny walks with Harriett toward the bakery. They are holding hands. Ginny is afraid and has not left the apartment in the week since the shooting.
I felt this was an important change to make it very clear from the beginning that this is Ginny’s story.
Editing your fiction takes work, but the payoff is immense, particularly in solidifying the perspective(s) and point(s) of view in your writing, and taking the onus off of the reader to keep it all straight.
Thank you for reading Volume 10 of my fiction workshop series! Whether you are an emerging or experienced fiction writer, please share your thoughts about perspective and point of view in the comments.